


And a Promise Fell

by FenVallas



Series: Revasel Lavellan [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 22:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3706577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FenVallas/pseuds/FenVallas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prompt from tumblr that requested something about my Lavellan interacting with the Elves on the Exalted Plains. It ended up being more about her opinions on the Dalish and how polarizing they are. Implied Solavellan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And a Promise Fell

When Rey had been nine years old, her father had taken her out into the forest and had taught her how to shoot a bow for the very first time. She’d had no skill, and her aim was sloppy, but her father had been kind and patient, as always. 

He was a hunter in their clan, and in his youth, before they both had been marked by adulthood, he had been the Keeper’s lover. It was why he was so favored, or so the rumors went. Those rumors would mark Revasel’s life forever, but when she was nine she had known only the simplicity of that wooden bow beneath her hands and her father’s smiling face. 

Such thoughts were always at the forefront of her mind when she walked among aravels or stood by halla pens, their pungent smell nearly causing tears of nostalgia to prick her eyes. Sometimes, the stone walls of Skyhold seemed so limiting and she missed the feeling of wood and dirt and grass beneath her feet. 

Other times, she wished she could leave the Dalish behind forever. 

She had always been aware of how petty they were about their lore, though not for her own sake. Her brother was the one invested in the discovery of new information through the exploration of ruins, who believed beyond a doubt that the accepted canon of Dalish Theology was flawed. He had traded for books with the shemlen since he was old enough to read and found records of Elvhen stories far older than what the Dalish had through them.

Once he had told her he wanted to let the Templars catch him just so he could get access to the Circle archives on Elvhen history. 

If not for him, Rey would have been content to be indifferent. 

She lived firmly in the present, and most of a Keeper’s duty had to deal with caring for the clan, so that was what she had always focused on. It was what she was focused on now as well, to an extent, the Keeping of her “Clan”, the Inquisition. 

And yet it seemed the men in her life were determined to be invested in arguing with the bulk of Dalish cultural practices. 

The man in question currently stood next to her, his head bowed as he leaned over a small fence likely built by the shemlen who occupied the Exalted Plains before things went to the Void. He looked oddly small and old, his face wearing the lines of his age more fiercely than it usually did, the subtle crease between his brows a deep trench instead of a simple furrow. 

“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment standing beside him, torn between her annoyance at her people for their ability to alienate those she cared for and her deep love for them. 

“Why are you apologizing?” He didn’t look at her, but she saw some of the tension drain from his face, a breath pushing past his lips. “You have done nothing wrong,  _lethallin_.”

“I feel responsible because they’re my people.” Her tone left no room for argument, her eyes searching a face that refused to look at her for answers to questions that she should have been asking sooner.

Was bringing Solas here truly a good idea when she knew how he felt about the Dalish?

She had never doubted the veracity of his claim when he’d told her they’d turned him and his observations away because they’d laughed at her brother, and he had the vallaslin that marked him as one of theirs. Solas has a bare face, and she herself hadn’t taken him seriously at first because of it, something that now shamed her. 

But now… Not even Solas could be caused such distress by simply being turned away. She knew him to be a reasonable man, though easily annoyed. There’s no way he would be so upset by a simple rejection of his teachings. 

“You shouldn’t. They make their own decisions and are accountable for them, as is each person who comes into this world,” his words were matter-o-fact, and she could tell he was trying very hard to maintain his objectivity, something she had quickly learned he deeply cherished. 

“Solas?” 

It was only then that he looked at her, the anger in his eyes so apparent that she was taken completely aback by it for a moment. He usually was remarkably calm, despite the spark of annoyance that would light his eyes during his passionate rants, so this was… Well, a bit more than a surprise. 

“It’s not your fault,” she said, worrying her lip between her teeth before she took one step forward and then another, resting her hand on his arm. 

She watched him swallow, his eyes straying to her hand for a moment before he searched her face, seemingly satisfied when what he found enough for his lips to tug up into a slight smile. 

“It is,” he said, and it sounded like a heavy admission.”My fault, that is.”

She knew that he wouldn’t elaborate (he never did, though sometimes it looked like he almost might explain with the way he opened and closed his mouth like a beached fish), watching him draw away from her, his eyes focused once more on some distant point across the stream. 

“Perhaps one day, when all is said and done, you will understand what it feels like to be remembered for fragments of your accomplishments with the context robbed from your actions,” his voice was barely a sigh. “I hope you do not live to see that day, that it is long in the future. Nothing is more unpleasant than waking up to realize you’ve lost your place to belong.” 

Rey recalled thinking only awhile after she had met him that no one chose to be a hermit, that it was something forced upon you for reasons beyond your control. Solas was independent, a slow burning fire beneath a face that often seemed so coolly detached and emotionally stable, so she had thought maybe he had chosen after all.

But just like that bow in the woods, just like her father’s steady hands and his words about how she could choose to be whatever she wanted, and just like Arlathvhen, where great Dalish minds met to argue the lore, it was only the illusion of a choice. 

She was always going to be a mage. It was in her blood just as much as the color of her hair or the brightness of her eyes or the shape of her ears. 

Arlathvhen was always doomed to end with an affirmation of the accepted canon, dissenters silenced no matter the strength of their proof. 

She had learned at a young age that sometimes you simply were born to be a certain thing and that there was nothing you could do about it. 

Change woudln’t come unless forced by the gods themselves, and they were all ghosts that haunted the lines of the vallaslin now, more faded than her memories of the woman she had known as her mother. 

“They won’t change,” she said at last, leaning across the fence with him, looking out on the wild hall that grazed across the stream. “It would take a cataclysm to force them. Another Fen’Harel.” 

Solas hummed, and for some reason the sound felt like a brick on her chest coming from the man who knew so much about the history of The People. 

“There are worse things roaming Thedas than a world weary wolf,” said Solas, eyes sharp with memories left unspoken, “but perhaps you are right. Perhaps only the Dread Wolf himself could force a change in the people now.”

He straightened and mimicked firing an arrow, his profile blazing fierce in the setting sun. 

“Another slow arrow.”

For some reason, it fell like a promise from his lips. 


End file.
